In my view - Everyone has a A937/a90 story

Lee McCann

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write in my latest ramblings but a comment on Facebook on Thursday afternoon really resonated with me.

The comment in question related to the news that a report is due to be published this month on the A937/A90 junction after the First Minister was questioned by Nigel Don at FMQs.

Claire Morris had commented: “Come on Nicola - do the right thing and give us a flyover. The junction is a nightmare - you feel like you’re doing a life lottery every time you cross it.”

The final sentence stunned me when I read it, mainly because I have never crossed that junction. I refuse to, I would rather take the long way round than ever try and cross onto the A90 northbound or try and get through to Laurencekirk. Why? Simply put I don’t trust other drivers around there. Hearing of the near misses, seeing the video of the bus hanging over the A90 southbound, I truly am terrified of that junction.

I just wouldn’t trust crossing into the central reservation to have someone join me in rush hour traffic.

I’ve been driving since I was 17 and being an Aberdeen loon have ventured across Haudagain Roundabout without a care in the world. So what is so fear striking about this junction? Simple - everyone who has used it or uses it regularly has a story of a near miss. The A937/A90 junction campaign Facebook page has new additions to this tally daily.

I travel quite frequently down the A90 and back up to visit friends and loved ones in Edinburgh and every time I have neared that junction I become tense. I’m not a bad driver (doesn’t everyone say that though?) and I am prone to use language that would make my nana throw her slipper at me when I’m in a car but, there is something about that junction. Maybe the campaign for a flyover has been around for so long that myth is overtaking reality.

The fact that between Dundee and Perth a garden centre has a flyover really gets my goat but I digress. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought to myself that I’d love to go down to the junction really early, take a camp chair with me and just count the cars and document my findings. The reality of that is I’m too scared. Hand on heart I’m too scared.

This is coming from the guy who two years ago in his first month at the Leader let two motorcycles ride around a cage he was standing in the middle of in the name of an article for the circus coming to town. I’ve done that but I won’t dare cross this junction. Does this say more about myself or the A937/A90 junction?